Frostnipped
by The Akk Attack
Summary: A few significant adventures and mishaps in the earlier years of life of Yah'jinabi, a Frostmane troll living on Shimmer Ridge in Dun Morogh with her wimpy cousin Abolji and her thickheaded brother Rajo.
1. The Naivety of Children

Snow was falling over Dun Morogh as the sun set, driving the temperature of the already chilly region down to an almost unbearable low.

The dwarves and visitors in Kharanos were making their ways to the Inns and buildings of the cozy town, smoke already starting to drift up from the cheery fires burning within, warming the cold people for the evening as the sound of merry song followed the smoke out into the dimming sky.

Other spirals of smoke joined the first, far, far away from the town, deep within the sparse forest of the snowy region. These fires were just as cozy, yet uncontained by any stone or metal hearth.

The Frostmane trolls who grudgingly shared the land with the dwarves were going about their twilit business as well, stoking cooking fires back to life and settling down for the night.

One female clothed in fur-trimmed deerskin stood on the edge of the ridge, by one of the steep cliff faces, watching out over the snowy stretch of land and black trees below.

Her long white hair was sprawled over her shoulders in a mess of dreadlocks, and her brow was creased with worry.

A young troll boy, seeming perhaps the age of twelve with small, still-growing tusks and long silvery-blue hair stepped up beside her. He held a strong resemblance to the older Frostmane.

"Have you seen your sister, Rajo?" The woman asked him.

Her son shook his head. "When she and Abolji left this afternoon was the last anyone's seen her. I asked," he gestured half-heartedly at the huts behind them, sounding slightly less-worried than his mother.

"They'll be back. It's only just started getting dark," Rajo added, smiling reassuringly.

"They're so young though," the woman said with a tired-sounding sigh. "I'm worried about them."

---

"I'm scared," the small, white-haired troll boy whined, holding his little stone hatchet close to his chest. He was too young to have grown into his tusks yet, looking about seven or eight years old.

Ahead of him, knee-deep in snow and shivering violently was a female child with pale grey hair and reddish eyes, looking up at the trees that surrounded them. Snowflakes filtered down through the branches and powered their heads and shoulders with white dust. Wolves howled off in the distance, along with a whuffing, snuffling snort of a boar from somewhere behind a tree not far away.

The girl nodded, "Me too."

"I want to go home."

"Me too."

The two Frostmane children were normally used to the cold and snow, but the over-exposure coming from being lost in the forest for so long was beginning to take its toll. Their lips were bluing, their hands and feet numb and pale-skinned. The girl's lips had cracked form the cold and were bleeding slightly.

The girl sighed, the arm holding a crude spear dropping to hang limply at her side.

They had been going off into the Dun Morogh forest alone as soon as they were allowed to leave the ridge without a chaperone and knew the area around Shimmer Ridge extremely well, but an enticingly fat snowshoe rabbit had drawn the two young cousins farther away from the village than they had intended. The trees all looked alike in the deepening shadows and snow had covered up their tracks. The cousins had quickly become lost after fleeing from a hunting bear that obviously wanted the same rabbit as they did and was willing to compensate with the two troll children who scared it away, running in a direction that only lead them further away from the village.

"What if a dwarf comes?" The boy asked, looking around fearfully as if the mere mention would bring one leaping out of the shadows at them, axe in hand. The dwarves of Ironforge, to the northeast, were the most hated enemies of the Frostmane, and no single individual of either side hesitated to kill the other on sight.

"We'll kill it!" The girl bared her teeth, showing off two tiny tusks hidden just below her lower lip and brandishing her wooden spear menacingly at the darkness between the trees.

"But, Yah'j...." Her cousin whimpered, "Aunt Ajalo told us not to go near them because we were too young."

"You're just a coward, Abolji," Yah'jinabi spat, obviously not caring about what he mother had said, her high voice sounding overly loud as the snow deadened all the other sounds of the forest.

Her cousin shrank back, looking hurt.

The boar that had been snuffing around in the background had moved surprisingly quiet and appeared around a tree in front of them, suddenly enough to make both children jump and yell.

The sound startled the boar as well, and it turned on them, snorting loudly.

"Go away!" Yah'jinabi threw her hands up at the boar, hoping to scare it off, but the beast only shook its head and stood its ground.

"It's gonna charge!" Abolji wailed, backing up until his back hit the tree they were standing beneath.

Yah'jinabi raised her tiny spear over her head in the event it did charge, watching the boar closely, still shouting and kicking snow at it. Abolji looked back and forth between his cousin and the boar and timidly held his hatchet up in what would have been a threatening pose if he had been perhaps three feet taller, twenty years older and held a more dangerous weapon.

The boar lowered its head and shook its two gleaming, curved tusks at them, undeterred by the pair's show of defense. When it turned suddenly, deciding the children weren't worth its time and making to leave, Yah'jinabi's coiled nerves launched the spear at the boar. The weapon sailed through the air and landed with a satisfying _thunk_ in the animal's hind leg.

If not for the beast's abrupt rushing at her, the grating squeal of pain and outrage it bellowed out and the sight of her own spear, its tip stuck just under the creature's hide would have made her swell with pride.

Instead, she and Abolji let out simultaneous shrieks and darted around the tree, the boy dropping his hatchet in his panic.

"You made it mad!" He screamed, matching his cousin's stride as they leapt through the snow, twisting around trees. The rapidly approaching night was making seeing the trees difficult, yet the white snow's stark contrast to the black trees made things a bit easier. The boar's enraged huffing was just behind them.

Yah'jinabi didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed Abolji's hand and pulled him sharply over a boulder as the boar rushed past, it having been such a close call that he felt its bristly hide brush past him. The two slid down a bank of packed snow and rushed into a thicket around the base of another, smaller tree.

"Up the tree!" Yah'j ordered her cousin, pointing at the low branches above them. The boar was not dumb, however, and came huffing down the bank after them, still dragging the young troll's spear from its leg. Spots of blood trailed behind it in the snow, staining it red that quickly faded to pink as it soaked in.

They had been told to climb the trees if a wolf or bear ever came after them, they didn't see any reason for boars to be any exception; they could be just as dangerous.

Yah'jinabi laced her fingers together and gave Abolji a foothold, lifting him up against the tree trunk until his numb hands found the lowest branch. He heaved himself up onto it, then, holding onto the branch above the one he perched on, reached down to help his cousin up.

The boar crashed through the brush just as Yah'j was struggling up pull herself onto the limb, Abolji pulling on the back of her doeskin vest and her bare feet scrambling against the trunk in an attempt to help push herself up faster. The boar's tusk caught her lower leg, opening up a long but shallow slice from her calf to her ankle.

Both Abolji and Yah'j shrieked, the boy yanking hard on her shirt until Yah'j lay on her stomach over the branch, her legs hanging over one side- but held up- and her upper body over the other. She looked down, terrified, at the boar as it raged and squealed at the base of the tree, angry at being cheated of its victims. Their struggles had shaken the branch as to let down the powdery snow that had been collecting on its fans of needles, dusting the dark animal in white.

Yah'j righted herself on the branch and put a hand to her injured leg. Her fingers came away wet and dark with blood, and the two cousins held each other, both shaking and crying.

"I want to go home," Abolji whined for the second time that night.

A deep, loud voice shattered the otherwise silent forest if not for the angry boar's grunts and barks. It was not the voice of a troll, though, and the two cousins both started in fright at the sound, squeezing closer to one another.

"It's a dwarf," Yah'j whispered, rust-red eyes wide and terrified. Now faced with meeting a real dwarf, all her previous bravery was washed away.

The voice came again, sounding like it was calling something. Though they could not understand what the dwarf said, it sounded like a name being called, as the same word came up multiple times in the strange language.

"Orri! Girl, Orri! Where'd ye go?"

"Is it yelling at us? Does it know where we are?" Abolji asked fearfully, his teeth rattling as they both shook with the cold and fright.

Yah'j shook her head, her voice sounding very tiny. "I dunno."

There came the sound of snow crunching beneath heavy booted feet from up the bank they had come down, and the boar turned towards the sound and let out a loud squeal.

"Orri! S'that ye? C'mere!"

The boar rushed out of the thicket, and the dwarf's voice took on a relieved note.

"Orri! There ye are. Ah was 'fraid ye'd gotten yese'f eaten by th' wol- Orri! No! C'm back 'ere!"

The snow crunched again, and the boar was back under the tree, snorting and stamping its feet.

"Dûmar! Did'ye fin' 'er?" A second voice, more feminine yet still deep, called from further back in the trees than the first, male voice did.

"Aye, bu' she done an' ran off ag'in!"

The nearer boots tromped closer to the thicket, and the creak of leather and whisper of fur came with it. The two Frostmane children held as still as if they had been frozen to the tree, which they probably would do anyways if they were still stuck in it once night completely took over.

The brittle brush around the base of the tree snapped and parted and a stout dwarven man pushed his way through, his breath making plumes of steam in the frigid air. His green, fur-trimmed cloak dragged in the snow behind him, and, as with all dwarven men, a long, braided red bead hung from his chin. The rest of his face, however, was hidden by a green hood pulled up to ward off the cold.

"Orri, ye bad pig," he grumbled, not yet noticing the twin pair of terrified yet fascinated eyes watching him from the dark branches above.

"C'mere," he grunted, reaching down to guide the boar out of the thicket.

The boar- Orri- snorted loudly and turned, obviously not wanting to move and it was then the dwarven man saw the small spear sticking out of her leg.

"Orri, wha' th' 'ell ye gotten yese'f into this time?" He sighed, holding his hand out, palm up, to calm the beast. With his other hand, he deftly reached around and slid the spearhead out from under the animal's skin while it had been distracted with smelling his upturned palm, thinking she was being presented a treat. Orri jerked and made a deep, angry sound, and Dûmar backed away with a nervous look on his face.

"Eh... Murrie, ye better come and git yer pig... I don' like th' look she's givin' me," he called over his shoulder, examining the spear with one eye and keeping watch on Orri with the other. He had never really liked his hunting companion's boar in the first place, and it seemed the feelings were mutual.

"Where ye a'?" Came the woman's voice, from a bit closer than the last time she had spoken.

"In th' thicket, by th' big tree-" Dûmar began, looking up into the tree as he mentioned it. He swore and jumped back at the sight of the two trolls in the tree, but steadied himself when he realized they were only children. Shivering, terrified, bloody children, he noted, seeing the gash in one troll child's leg.

"I see blood, is Orri alrigh'?" Called the woman, sounding from about the distance of the top of the bank. A flicker of orange light from the torch she carried chased away the shadows around her.

Realization spread over Dûmar's face at the mention of blood, looking from the tiny, crude spear in his hand to the blood in the snow, the wound in Orri's rump, the smear of blood on the boar's tusk and the slice in the troll child's leg.

The dwarf looked up again into the trees at the two trollish children, neither of them moving. The three stared at each other, and as they did so, the injured child's eyes flicked towards the spear in Dûmar's hand.

The aged dwarf laughed quietly. "So's ye two been leadin' Orri 'round out 'ere, eh?" He said softly, too low for the female dwarf tromping through the snow outside the thicket to hear.

"What's he saying?" Murmured Abolji, meeting the dwarf's kind, almost laughing eyes with his own wild, frightened ones.

"He's smiling," Yah'jinabi noted, not understanding what the dwarf had said either. "Maybe he won't hurt us."

"I's alrigh'," Dûmar nodded after the children's short, shaky exchange with each other in their own tongue. "I won' be tellin' Murrie." He put his finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, winked and tossed the spear into the thicket, opposite of the direction the female dwarf, "Murrie", was coming through.

"I _said _is Orri alrigh'? Wha's with th' blood out 'ere?" Murrie demanded gruffly, shoving her way through the brush.

Dûmar turned to face the dwarf woman. Her hair was tied in twin brown doorknockers, laced with grey, that fell to her wide shoulders, and a rifle was readied and in her hands. She wore stitched tan leather with fur trimming.

"I'm guessing tha' Orri got inna bit o' scuffle with somethin' after she ran off an' hid in 'ere," Dûmar gestured at the thicket, stepping closer to Murrie and placing himself between her and the troll children's' hiding spot.

"We kin go an' find it," Murrie suggested, hefting her gun.

"Naw, pro'lly jes' another boar. I saw more hoof tracks out in th' snow ther'," Dûmar felt no regret for lying to Murrie... he didn't like her much either. She was too merciless and cruel, especially to the Frostmane trolls. He was never sure, as the huntress didn't tell him and he never asked, why she hated trolls in general so much. She easily gunned down wandering trolls from distances with her rifle and enjoyed it, much to her hunting companion's disgust. He disliked her dishonorable way of fighting, as the warrior in him preferred fair fights to blowing the enemy's brains out from behind thirty yards away. He wasn't quite sure what the huntress would do to the two troll children, and didn't want to find out.

Murrie looked down at Orri disapprovingly, setting the butt of the rifle down in the snow.

"Ye bad girl Orri, runnin' off like tha'." The boar circled the tree, raising her short neck to peer up into the branches with her black, piggish eyes and snorted loudly. Dûmar, momentarily fearing Murrie would finally take notice of the children, quickly sidestepped between the boar and the tree and plucked a pinecone from one of the needle fans closest to the ground. He hoped Murrie didn't hear the quiet intake of frightened breath from in the deep shadow in the branches cast by the torchlight she held as he did so.

"'Ere ye go, Orri, bu' I don' know why ye'd be wantin' one'a these," he said amusedly and with a chuckle, holding the pinecone out to the boar. Orri only huffed disgustedly and paced around the tree again.

"Wha's eatin' you, Orri?" Murrie asked, laying a hand on the boar's back as it walked up to it's master.

"She pro'lly wan's t' be headin' home," Dûmar suggested, holding his hand out for the torch. Murrie handed it to him, watching Orri pace restlessly at the base of the tree as the green-hooded dwarf pushed his way past her and through the brush.

As the torchlight was blotted out by the brush, Murrie glanced up into the tree momentarily, but the previous light had ruined her night vision. She frowned and grunted a command at Orri, ordering her pet to follow and headed off after Dûmar. Although Orri made another appalled sound, she lowered her black, bristly head and trotted away behind her master.

Abolji and Yah'j huddled in the branches until the last flicker of torchlight through the trees was gone and the crunch of heavy boots and hooves in fresh snow could no longer be heard.

Abolji sighed. "I think they're gone."

His cousin nodded and glanced down at the trampled snow beneath the tree. Her leg was no longer bleeding, though the wound was still open. Her natural regenerative abilities would seal the gash in a few hours.

"It's too dark," Abolji said meekly as Yah'j swung her legs over the side of the branch and made to jump down, anxious to retrieve her spear. "There're more wolves."

With a sigh to match her cousin's earlier one, Yah'j nodded, not wanting to run into any more aggressive animals.

"That dwarf saw us," Abolji added, looking down to where the dwarven man had stood when he noticed the cousins, "but he didn't do anything. He smiled."

Yah'j only nodded again. "We should stay here tonight."

"Aunt Ajalo's gonna be angry though if we're not home."

"Mother's always angry at us," she grumbled, which was true in a sense. Ajalo was constantly lecturing her daughter and nephew to cease their daring antics during the days, as the two frequently returned from a day of "exploring" or "hunting" to tell tales of throwing rocks at a bear or trogg or gnome or scaring the horses or rams pulling the merchant carts on the roads.

"We'll just go home in the morning," Abolji decided, blindly feeling for the shadowed branches above him to climb to a spot where they could rest at. Their current perch was sturdy and strong, but was too bare to support anyone's sleep. Smaller branches with more extrusions were easier to lie on.

Grumbling, Yah'j followed Abolji up into a cold branches, huddling next to her cousin on a thick, sturdy limb.

"We're gonna be in a lot of trouble tomorrow," Abolji remarked guiltily, leaning his cheek on the tree trunk. His cousin only nodded from where she rested her own cheek against his shoulder and fell silent for the night.

-----

**Hey! Sorry it ended so roughly and suddenly. I've written like, five different endings to this and none seemed right! So I hacked it off here. Hope you liked it despite the ending TT_TT **

**There's a very high chance I'll add a second, shorter, sadder chapter.**


	2. Downhill

"Murrie, this ain't such a good idea. Three t' two ain' in our favor," the aged dwarf pointed out, stumping ungracefully through the trampled snow. His beard was long and probably used to be red, but now it was more of a grayish rust color and was braided so that it hung to his beltline. The braid swung back and forth as he slogged through the uneven footing, and in the bright sun his squinted eyes caused heavy wrinkles to break along his face.

"Them two sets o' tracks there is small, see? Gotta be whelps, an' only one big 'un. We'll be fine," the dwarf woman replied without turning around, a short ways ahead of him. She waved a stubby-fingered hand over the general area of the large, two-toed tracks left in the deep snow.

"Jus' take out th' big 'un first, them whelps'll just stand there lookin' dumb, like they usually do... Stupid things di'n even try t' cover it up," Murrie mused, meaning the tracks, the snow crunching loudly under her clunky brown boots.

Dûmar only grunted in return. That woman drove him insane at times with her obsession of hunting the trolls down.

It was Murrie who had discovered the Frostmane footprints in the snow southeast of Kharanos. She followed it, naturally, hoping to find the maker of the tracks and do away with the troll, and discovered- a disturbingly short distance away from the town- that the first set of prints jumped a creek and was joined by the two smaller sets that seemingly formed from out of the brush. The tracks then continued west together and had even had the nerve to cross the road leading south out of Kharanos!

"Filthy trolls, stalkin' around right outside our gates an' we din' even see 'em!" She had exclaimed, hefting her gun and demanding that her companion follow her.

"I'm bettin' it's a mother an' 'er two whelps," Murrie continued conversationally, her breath coming out in huffs of steam in the cold air. "She probably took them two larva of her's an' shows them th' town an' the people, an' tells 'em 'You come here an' kill people! Bring backs heads!'"

"Aye," Dûmar agreed, not quite as enthusiastic as Murrie, who was now laughing at her own impression of a Frostmane troll. So distracted was he in his thoughts that he nearly stepped on a dead rabbit laying alongside the tracks, as its coat was the same color as the surrounding churned slush.

That one incident, years ago, when those two Frostmane children had led Murrie's pet boar around the forest and then were treed by the beast, he was sure that if Murrie had seen them that night, she wouldn't have hesitated to blast them out of the tree. The thought made him feel ill. She insisted that if they never allowed the children to grow into warriors of their tribe, they just saved dozens of people who would have been the troll's future victims.

Dûmar was quite alright with an honest fight with an equally matched opponent, said opponents being the Frostmane trolls that had been clashing with the dwarves and gnomes for years. But their children? He secretly hoped they would lose the trail and Murrie would give up, or it would begin to snow, but the tracks were stamped out in the snow despairingly clear.

Up ahead, Murrie spat angrily.

"Ack, damn!"

To Dûmar's surprised, snow was in fact starting to drift down from some of the tattered clouds as the late afternoon began its shift into early evening.

"We'll lose th' tracks if it snows fer very long. Le's move faster."

The dwarf woman picked up her pace, intent on finding the overly-bold trolls and hating the idea of losing them. The pair continued jogging through the snow for a few minutes, the only sounds being that of their footsteps and the wind.

"Wait, lis'en," Murrie suddenly halted in her own tracks, peering hard through the dappled light, then swung behind a tree. "Get down!" She hissed, and Dûmar quickly followed in suite, stepping quickly behind a patch of brush. Rough voices speaking a strangely rhythmic, flowing language were coming closer, also seeming to be following the tracks, coupled by the sound of large feet crushing freshening snow.

"Don't fall asleep Yah'j," Abolji whispered in her ear, shaking her shoulder. Yah'jinabi snapped her head up, having almost nodded off, and the motion flipped her shoulder-length dreadlocks around. Blinking hard against the brilliant, almost glowing patches of sunlight-reflecting snow between the fans of pine needles, she pushed a dirty, knotted hank of white hair out of her reddish eyes.

"I wasn't asleep," she insisted.

"You almost were," Abolji pointed out from his perch on the tree branch next to her.

The two, now much older cousins were balanced on a thick branch nearly ten feet above the ground, though thick spreads of the fir tree's needles hid them from outside eyes by casting irregular, spiky shadows.

Nearly seven years had passed since the night they had been treed by the dwarf's vicious boar. Their memories were fuzzy at best of the incident and the following morning, but some of the highlights still stood out. Mainly that the cousins had dropped from the tree when the sun rose, having survived the frigid night, and wandered through the snow until they heard the calls of Aunt Ajalo and Rajo. Ajalo had gathered the two close to her for a moment thankfully, then stepped back and slapped the both of them hard enough to leave a flushed mark across their cheekbones for running off and marched them back to Shimmer Ridge.

Twelve-year-old Rajo, Yah'j's older brother, had laughed meanly at his younger sister and cousin's misfortune, but later, as is the way of children, the three of them fell into a game of throwing snow at each other and all was forgiven.

But before that, Ajalo and another Frostmane woman discovered the tips of the children's' ears were frostbitten and dead when they were taken back to Ajalo's hut, and the two women proceeded to hold the children down in turn and cut away the deadened skin with a knife so it could regrow with the help of the remarkable self-regeneration that was a talent of all trolls. Abolji and Yah'j still bore the thin scars on the tips of their ears, even into adulthood later in their lives.

"You remember what the elders warn us of," Abolji continued, "the ice spirits that trick you into falling asleep when it is very cold by telling you that you are very tired, and you never wake up."

"It isn't _that _cold. I wasn't being tricked."

"I know, I was only thinking it hasn't been as cold lately, maybe the spirits became impatient and tried tricking you now."

Yah'j rolled her eyes, balancing her bow on her knees, her quiver of arrows hanging from her waist. Beside her, Abolji was clutching a pair of stone hatchets.

"I'm awake now. Have you seen anything?"

"Not yet."

The implication of his tone made them both grin excitedly.

From their post in the tree, they overlooked a small creek bed cutting through a clearing, frozen over on all sides except the very center, where the painfully cold waters still gurgled through. It was a prime location to wait for deer, and thus was exactly what they were doing. Rajo, now an adult, was off somewhere looking for bigger game. The three of them had been out in the woods for two days now, hunting both for food to bring back to Shimmer Ridge and for the sheer thrill of braving the harsh wilderness.

A small herd of several deer crept out into the clearing on the other side of the creek, their broad ears held up and alert and their dark eyes wide and watchful.

Yah'jinabi made an eager hissing sound and slowly shifted on the branch, drawing an arrow out and scanning the heard of deer hungrily.

"There's the male," Abolji directed, pointing through the branches at the impressive buck off to the side of the herd. His horns still held patches of velvet skin on them.

"He's young," Yah'jinabi noted with a respectful nod, silently acknowledging Har'koa and thanking the snow leopard Loa for the prey, already tasting the excellent venison the young buck would provide the village. She notched the arrow and pulled the string back slightly in anticipation.

The herd came closer, chancing the thick ice on the edges of the creek to drink.

Before she could aim, however, a long spear arced out from somewhere in the trees opposite them and struck a doe in the ribcage. The rest of the herd scattered, the magnificent buck leaping away with the does and vanishing into the trees like ghosts. Yah'j and Abolji both froze, fearing they had possibly been discovered as they were so near the largest dwarf town, but it was Abolji who recognized the spear protruding from the wounded doe.

"Rajo," he grumbled, and Yah'j let her shoulders droop exasperatedly and put her bow and arrow away, dropping down from the tree and into the brush below.

"Damn you, Rajo!" She yelled at the opposite side of the clearing as Abolji jumped down besides her, landing with a grunt and a crunch of snow and brush. Abolji held in one of his hands a small, furry body he had grabbed off the branch beside him before dropping to the ground.

A deep voice laughed from the shade of the trees across the creek and a tall- for a Frostmane- troll stepped out into the sun. Rajo was nearly a head taller than the two younger trolls, with a proud mohawk of silver-blue hair and long, hooked tusks.

"Little sister! Abolji!" He called happily, seeing his sibling and cousin on the opposite side of the creek. He wore hides and furs and worn cloth nearly identical to the two younger cousins' clothing. To both Yah'j and Abolji's envy, a large black boar he had apparently been carrying with him was laying on a patch of brush at his feet as he stepped from the shadows.

Drawing a wickedly sharp knife that was strapped diagonally across his chest on a sling, he stepped up to the dying doe. The creature, although having staggered and fallen on its side, was still breathing; blood welling up from where the spear punctured its hide and trickling onto the ice beneath it, staining it pink.

"We've been waiting here for hours!" Yah'jinabi said hotly, throwing her hands out as Rajo knelt down and casually slit the doe's throat, ending its already shortened life.

"You have? What for? To enjoy the scenery?" He leered up at her, still kneeling.

"We were waiting for deer... I was aiming for the buck." Yah'jinabi crossed her arms across her chest, disgruntled.

"Better be quicker about that in the future."

Yah'j knew she wouldn't be able to scold Rajo anymore than she could scold a rock, and gave up with a loud, exasperated sound between a groan and a sigh, letting her head drop back. Abolji snickered behind her.

"Did you catch anything?" Rajo asked, slightly more serious, putting one foot on the dead deer's side and pulling the bloodied spear out. He dipped his weapons into the water after carefully testing the stability of the ice at the edge of the creek, washing the blood away.

Yah'j glared at the doe, then jealously at the boar a ways behind Rajo before sullenly looking to the white hare Abolji still held, and at her glance her blue-haired cousin lifted the rodent up in indication.

Rajo grinned widely around his tusks, saying "Good!" although he seemed more smug than praising. "We can have a feast tonight!" He exclaimed, standing and sheathing his knife. By his tone it was clear he was gloating somewhat, although jokingly. He could be thick-headed and constantly mocking at times, but it was all in a good-natured manner. Usually.

"Let's start heading home. It's a long walk and we're not stopping for nightfall." Rajo left the deer laying on the ice, the bloodstains beneath it only a smudge of pale pink, as if the ice were blushing. He retrieved the boar, hefting it up onto his shoulders with a grunt, then looked pointedly between his sister and the deer carcass, grinning.

"Since Abolji already has something to carry."

Abolji made to hand the rabbit to his cousin politely after a moment's hesitation, but Yah'j stubbornly shoved the dead rodent back away and marched towards the creek.

Slinging her bow across her back, Yah'j hopped over the ice-encrusted water. She braced herself for the weight and lugged the heavy doe up into her arms, trying not to make any straining sounds and seem stronger than she really was, struggling to lift and then balance it across one shoulder. She unsteadily re-crossed the ice, encumbered by the animal's dead (no pun intended) weight.

Rajo's long legs carried him easily over the narrow strip of water. It was almost a single step for him.

"Homeward bound," he nodded westward, the boar's weight making his footsteps through the snow even deeper.

The two younger cousins exchanged glances and followed.

"Wait for him to look away." Yah'jinabi whispered excitedly.

The Frostmane trio had come upon the road connecting southern Anvilmar to Kharanos in the north, the later being only perhaps a hundred or so feet to their right. A single dwarf guard was posted on a tall, sharply jutting hill a short distance from where the trolls were, carving something out of a chunk of wood with his knife and occasionally scanning the area around him from his lookout point.

Abolji was peeking around a squat fir tree, looking in both directions down the road to be sure no one was coming. His cousins were crouched in the shaded area of a cluster of trees, waiting for him to wave them across.

"I _know, _Yah'j," Abolji hissed behind him, sure the roads were clear and now waiting for the guard to return to his wood carving. The dwarf inspected the landscape around him from beneath his thick, bushy brows and then looked down to continue whittling.

"Now!" The young axe-thrower made a beckoning motion, and Rajo and Yah'j both jumped up from where they had been hidden and poised, ready to run, and scampered across the road, carrying their heavy prey with them and sending nervous glances down the road to the dwarven town's gates. Abolji followed the two after checking the guard and road once more, holding a hatchet in both hands as Yah'j was carrying his rabbit for him while he watched the road. The white animal's carcass was balanced precariously atop the deer's body.

They ducked under the cover of trees on the other side of the road and slid down a steep bank, alert for any signs of dwarves or gnomes or even humans- who they actually stood eye-to-eye with- who had wandered off the path.

They did not speak as they trudged through the icy forest; Rajo and Yah'j were silent because of the load they carried and chose to save their breaths.

Abolji scouted on ahead, both hands free as Yah'j had forgotten to give him back his hare. As there was hardly anyone as far into the woods as they were, Abolji's job was not very difficult.

It was nearly an hour before they passed beneath the shadow of a monstrous rocky ridge, and Abolji finally felt guilty enough to remind Yah'j that she was carrying his prey as well.

"Yah'j," he dropped back behind from where he had been striding ahead, allowing Rajo to pass him. Snow was beginning to fall, dusting everything in white. The sun was starting to drift lower from his high point in the sky, signaling the approaching evening. "I'll take the hare from you. Unless you want me to carry the deer?" he added helpfully.

The Frostmane girl wordlessly heaved the doe onto her cousin's shoulders, who staggered and nearly fell backwards with the unexpected gift.

"About time you offered," She let the words out with a _whuff _of breath, looking grudgingly sheepish, but suddenly stopped walking, pausing for a moment with a surprised look on her face.

"Hex," she breathed, and Abolji noticed, after shifting the deer carcass onto his shoulder, that her hands were empty.

"You dropped it?" He gasped, looking at his white-dreadlocked cousin accusingly. She returned the glare.

"I was carrying the deer too, I wouldn't have noticed! You should carry your own prey then." She snapped back.

Abolji frowned, but nodded. It was wise to avoid arguing with Yah'j. "Never mind, I'll go back for it," he sighed, groaning inwardly after wondering where the hare could possibly be after an entire hour of walking, and that it's white coat would blend with the snow. Wonderful, then he'd return home empty-handed while the two obviously better hunters showed him up once again by dropping a huge boar and a fat doe in front of the village fire.

"Rajo," Yah'jinabi suddenly called after her brother, "Abolji and I are going to get his rabbit."

Abolji unceremoniously dumped the deer into the snow, but meekly smiled his silent thanks at Yah'j, relieved he wouldn't be hiking alone. Rajo stopped and laid the boar carcass down as well, stretching and rolling his shoulder sorely.

"Hurry up," he informed, obviously unhappy with the interruption by his tone. "We've still got a way to go."

"We'll be quick," the troll girl said, putting a hand to Abolji's back and giving him a shove, pushing him into a brisk jog.

Dûmar started slightly when two older Frostmane troll children stepped through the trees, talking to one another, completely unaware of the pair of dwarves they were inadvertently heading straight towards. One of them was a bright-eyed girl, her hair in a dirty mess of dreadlocks, while the other was a scrawny-looking boy, his tusks half-grown by the looks of it, his short hair dark blue and scruffy. The resembled each other greatly besides that and the old dwarf decided they must be siblings.

"Murrie, ye can't. Lookit them; they's only whelps," Dûmar pleaded, ducking back further behind the tree, seeing Murrie loading her single-shot, long-barreled gun.

"They'll only grow up t' be big beasts," she threw back in a whisper, snapping the barrel up and cocking the gun. "An' then they'll be even more trouble than they be now."

The young trolls suddenly froze, both of them looking like frightened deer caught in an abrupt light.

"Shut your trap!" Murrie mouthed to her companion, holding still as well. The trolls must have heard the click of the metal gun.

The boy said something in their language, a question by the sound of it, and the girl drew her bow off her back and notched an arrow, though she looked just as frightened as the boy sounded.

Dûmar felt suddenly sorry for them, but as he studied their uneasy faces, realization dawned on him.

"By the gods... I've seen them two b'fore," he breathed.

"Shh!" Murrie shushed him fiercely, not listening and not wanting to alert the two of their presence. The Frostmane pair held their breaths, looking around and listening, before relaxing somewhat. The girl child said something feebly and somewhat comforting to her companion and they continued walking, though their steps were measured and much quieter. The girl did not put her bow away.

Dûmar noticed Murrie's index finger tightening on the gun's trigger, the firearm held in such a way that it was ready to be shot once it was aimed properly.

"Murrie..." he whispered warningly. He'd saved those two troll children before. He was positive it was them. It was odd to see them haven grown so much, and although he feared defending a Frostmane would be considered treachery, he wasn't about to let Murrie finish a job she had almost completed years before.

The troll children were only fifteen away when Murrie suddenly swung back out from behind the tree, lifting her gun and leveling it with the troll girl. The Frostmane's mouth dropped open and her red eyes widened until the white shone all around. The boy shouted something in surprise twisted with terror.

"No!" Dûmar lunged out as well, grabbing the woman's arm and yanking it down sharply just as she pulled the trigger. A deafening crack split the air. At the same time, the troll girl let out a shriek and made to lift her bow, but fear had made her hands clumsy and awkward, and she gave such a violent start at the gunfire that she dropped it to the ground.

The bullet, however, had gone skew, sailing harmlessly past its target and vanishing somewhere into the trees with a _pfft _as it burrowed unseen into snow. The girl dove and made a clumsy grope at one end of the bow, but missed as she was pulled backwards by the male troll child, who was frantically jabbering in Zandali. He took hold of her wrist and pulled her the way they had originally come, and she abandoned the bow and followed him, towed away at a dead run.

"What in th' fel were ye thinkin'?" Murrie snarled angrily at Dûmar, shaking off his hand, then followed the retreating Frostmane, fumbling with her gun as she attempted to reload it as she barreled through banks of snow.

"Murrie!" The old dwarf barked, but the grey-haired woman either chose to not hear him or was too distracted by the chase. He hurried after her.

Yah'j did not think Abolji could run as fast as he did. He did not let go of her wrist, instead leading her towards where they had last left Rajo. They said nothing; the panicked glance they exchanged at one point during their flight was the only communication needed. Neither of them had been face-to-face with a dwarf since their night trapped in the tree, and back then they had been protected by childhood naivety. Now they had lived long enough to have seen tribe members brought back to the village, dead or dying by the hand of a dwarf. The short, bearded men had come to be regarded by the two troll children as something to be feared as well as hated, as they carried terrible fire-shooting weapons that were almost always fatal to those on the receiving end of the fight. Now, after experiencing one of the feared dwarf weapons up close, the horrible sound it made alone was enough to push them on in their run as if they were chased by a hulking, slavering bear.

"Rajo!" Yah'jinabi wailed as they drew near the small grove of trees they had left him at, drawing the word out into a screech. Abolji repeated the call a few steps later.

Yah'jinabi collided with her large brother as he turned suddenly around a tree, looking surprised with his spear in one hand. Abolji overshot and his hand slipped off her wrist, and he nearly tumbled into the snow as he attempted to stop so quickly after going such a speed.

Rajo stumbled back at the blow of his sprinting sister, then caught the slightly-stunned girl by the arm to steady her. She babbled something unintelligible, terrified, before Rajo gave her a slight shake.

"_What?" _He demanded harshly, tremendously alarmed by the younger trolls' frightened faces. His previous relaxed, almost teasing mannerisms were gone.

"Dwarves!" Yah'j blurted, her voice squeaking slightly in fear.

Rajo frowned. "That's all? You act as if you had an army of demons behind you!"

"But-" Abolji stammered from a short ways behind Yah'j, but Rajo cut him off.

"Don't be so frightened of dwarves. They're short and fat and slow. Are they coming this way?" He asked, scanning the trees.

"Yes... there's two," Yah'j stammered. "But Rajo-"

"Where's your bow?" Her brother interrupted again, seeing Yah'j's empty hands.

Yah'j was too afraid at the moment to be embarrassed of dropping her only weapon out in the woods. Even so, she dropped her shoulders slightly.

"I dropped it," she muttered.

The corner of Rajo's mouth quirked up slightly. "What a shame! This is a perfect opportunity to try hunting a dwarf with it. We'll go search for it afterwards," he said, as if the notion of approaching dwarves was little more than an inconvenience.

Abolji looked with equal disappointment at his remaining hatchet, though Rajo had failed to notice. He had dropped its twin to free one hand to grab Yah'j when they had first encountered the dwarves.

Turning his back on the younger trolls, Rajo set his spear out; the deadly, sharpened stone head facing the direction he assumed the dwarves would be coming from, as the twin sets of troll tracks both left and returned through the same stand of trees.

Yah'j stepped back behind Abolji, feeling exposed and naked without her bow despite her comfortingly strong brother and her armed cousin between her and the forthcoming dwarves. Mixed in with her other emotions were frustration and guilt, at being as clumsy enough to actually _drop _her bow and now needing to be protected by her blockhead of a brother and her scrawny cousin.

The only other sound was that of the two younger ones' heavy breathing as the three of them cocked their heads sideways to listen, and the almost inaudible sigh of falling snow.

The sound of grinding slush and angry, arguing voices in the language of the dwarves reached the trolls long before the actual dwarves came into view.

Abolji steadied his hatchet in one hand, balanced to throw it. Axe-thrower was practically the only thing he had any skill in, besides carrying the kills of his cousins on other hunting trips. Rajo noticed his scruffy-haired cousin and waved the hatchet down.

"Just watch this time," he ordered, and although Abolji lowered his arm, he did not let go of the axe. Despite the feeling of safety they usually had around Rajo- as he was excellent with the stone-headed spear he always carried- it felt... cowardly, in a way, to step back and allow his cousin to defend him while he was still armed. Abolji leaned out from behind Rajo and pointed.

"There," he whispered, and subconsciously backed alongside unarmed Yah'j, and Rajo nodded.

"Fat dwarves," he chuckled.

A female dwarf appeared first, pushing through the snow-dusted fir branches, with grey hair tied into two loops behind her ears and bearing an ugly snarl on her face. The snarl only intensified at the sight of the three Frostmane trolls across the clearing as a second, male dwarf pulled alongside her, out of breath.

"See? What'd I tell ye, Dûmar? Two young'uns an' a big'un. _Run t'yer daddy ye roaches!_" Murrie jeered, sighting the adult troll with the two whelps now half-hiding behind him. The adult troll pointed and laughed mockingly at her scowl, saying something over his shoulder to the two younger ones.

Dûmar, seeing the stance the older troll took after his comment, drew his own broad-bladed axe from his belt. He refused to harm the Frostmane children, despite the point Murrie constantly argued, but the adults were different in his mind. They were perfectly capable of defending themselves. Murrie stood with her gun parallel to her side, sizing the troll up. Her fur-trimmed cloak hung over her arm and the metal weapon partially.

The older Frostmane noticed Dûmar's glinting weapon and eyed him from his boots to his beard. He sneered, made a second comment to the troll whelps, and Dûmar gave a sudden start when he saw the muscles in the troll's shoulder bunch as he took a step forward and launched the spear he was holding at the axe-wielding dwarf. Murrie gave a shout and reached for Dûmar. Despite his age, he flung himself down into the snow, and the spear sank into a tree behind him with such force that the stone head was nearly engulfed by the bark.

"Tha's it!" Murrie snapped as Dûmar clambered to his feet. He held his axe out defensively, seeing the troll had nothing else to throw and would probably come after them now. Even so, he spared a glance at the spear behind him and thanked every god he could think of that he had gotten out of the way.

Murrie swung her gun up into her arms and cocked it, looking back and forth between the three trolls. Upon seeing it, the two troll whelps burst into babbling, the male child grabbing the older one's arm and the girl edging back. The adult ignored them, absent-mindedly pulling his arm from the boy and looking disappointed he had missed, eyeing the two dwarves with less smugness and more distaste.

"Jus' don' get the whelps," Dûmar said unsteadily, still shaken by the near-death experience.

"I'll get whichever 'un I want," she growled stubbornly, and was about to say more, except for a loud, savage yell interrupted her, startling them both.

The fully-grown Frostmane, seeing the dwarves distracted somewhat in their exchange, had pulled out a knife that had been strapped across his chest, which rasped sharply as it was freed from the leather sheath, and charged without warning across the clearing, dagger raised.

Without a word, Murrie hauled up the gun and pulled the trigger in one smooth motion while Dûmar readied his axe, though that was unnecessary on his part. A deafening crack ricocheted off the nearby ridge.

The troll looked almost comically surprised, one hand going to his chest as he stumbled in his rush. He staggered a step, glaring perplexedly at Murrie, as if wondering how she had hit him at the distance, before he sighted the gun propped up in her arms for the first time. Murrie caught his expression and smiled grimly.

"What, ye ain't ever seen one o' these before?" She hefted the gun slightly, and the Frostmane lifted his knife weakly as if to stab her despite the distance. Beneath the hand at his chest, brilliant red blood sluggishly oozed over his fingers, painfully bright in the hazy gloom of the pale forest. The dagger slipped from his outstretched hand suddenly to land into the crisp snow, and a moment later the troll's body followed with a crunch of slush. He did not move besides the minute ruffling of his long mohawk of hair in the slight breeze, and when Dûmar raised his attention above the now-dead Frostmane, he nearly winced aloud from the open-mouthed, stunned expressions of the two remaining troll whelps.

Murrie gave a short, satisfied grunt, eyeing the dead Frostmane, before a horrified, wordless shriek and the patter of rapid footsteps drew her attention upwards to the retreating backs of Frostmane children. A throwing hatchet lay forgotten in the snow.

"Oi!" She snapped, hastily reloading her gun, but by the time she had the rifle leveled and was sighting down the barrel, the two had vanished into the trees. Dûmar gave an almost inaudible sigh of what could have been relief.

"Dammit," Murrie grunted, letting the end of the gun drop. She was disappointed the two small ones had gotten away, as she had no desire to run any deeper into the woods with the approaching night. Instead, she looked triumphantly over at the dead Frostmane in the clearing again before turning around and grasping the handle of the thrown spear, giving it an experimental tug. It hardly budged, and she grunted and pulled harder before giving up and leaving it there.

"He's a big beastie, ain' he?" Murrie remarked proudly as she slung her gun onto her shoulder, returning her attention to the dead troll, to which Dûmar only sighed again and nodded.

"Aye," he agreed, remorsefully watching the way the two troll children had left.

* * *

**Well, I'm sorry it ended rather abruptly. I'm rather dreadful at scenes involving heavy emotion so I take the wussy way out and skip them entirely.**

**That aside, the next chapter leads off from this one mostly, so in the event you're interested, keep going! :P **

**-Akky**


	3. Relative Peace

**Hello all. I don't expect many people to have bothered with this story, to be honest. I wrote the first two chapters quite some time ago and have since then gotten a liiittle better at writing (which isn't saying much). Plus, I sort of re-formed the entire course of the story in my head and I'm not happy with it looking back. But, I'm not going to re-write it. The basic plotlines, I think, are okay, just not the way they're worded. If you can derive any enjoyment from reading, then... woohoo! Glad you liked it. If you don't, then... eh. My niche is drawing anyways. **

**Aaaanyways! I threw this last bit in just to tie up the loose ends of Frostnipped. I will, however, continue with the "next generation" line in a separate story that'll take place after the Cataclysm. Until then, my little band of Frostmane trollies will have relative peace. Of course, had I extended Frostnipped into the full third chapter like I had planned in a sketchy script I had... Wow. Blood. Action! Drama!**

* * *

A rabbit sniffed the crisp, clean air, its delicate whiskers twitching with the slight movement. It squeezed out from beneath a log and sat up on its strong haunches, observing the brightly sun-splattered, snow-coated clearing.

In the shadows cast by the low-hanging fir boughs, a still figure crouched with shoulders squared back and a short bow held out in one long arm. The arrow notched in the bow slowly yet near-perfectly followed the hare as it ventured out into the open. The string creaked slightly and, as the creature straightened in alarm, the thick arrow was released with a sharp_ fwap!_

"Mother!"

The rabbit sprang to one side, the arrowhead clipping its hide yet otherwise doing little damage. It bounded away into the underbrush, leaving the wayward arrow sticking up out of the snow like a tree sapling with its tuft of grey fletching.

The Frostmane troll lowered her bow and gave the child who had appeared at her elbow a patient look.

"Oo, we must be silent on the hunt. Any small sound," she gestured to the empty clearing, "and the opportunity is gone."

The Frostmane child ducked her head abashedly for a moment, then brought her hands from behind her back, displaying a long, broad feather in her grasp with deep grey bands striping the lighter ash color.

"I found this for you!"

Yah'jinabi smiled, her heart warming as she plucked the feather from her daughter's presented hands.

"You can tie it in your hair, like cousin Abolji."

The adult troll ruffled the short, scruffy mohawk along her own head, which was otherwise shaved with the exception of the grey-white crest and smirked around her large, hooked tusks. "Perhaps, my Oo," she patted the girl's black hair, which was tied up in a silly puff on the top of her head.

"It will make you look pretty! Oh-" Oo clapped a hand to her mouth. "I mean, prettier- you're pretty, mother. You don't need the feather to make you pretty! ...Can I have it?"

Yah'j finally laughed aloud and stuck the shaft of the feather into the band holding her daughter's topknot so that it stood straight up on her head.

"There. Now, though, we must be heading home. With no kills we will hope Mang has had better luck." She slung her bow across her back, tied the flap of hide over the quiver at her hip to keep the arrows secure, and took Oo's small hand in her own rough palm.

Yah'j, even in the happy aura of motherhood, could no longer walk the path leading up Frostmane Ridge without seeing the land as it had been nearly twelve years ago. Abolji, a fully-grown Frostmane adult in present times, appeared as a young phantom boy beside her, stumbling up the incline with a terrified, shocked, wetted face that had mirrored his cousin's. The memory of explaining to her mother Ajalo through shaking sobs that her first child was dead was doubly painful now that Yah'j knew the self-completing love for children of her own. Her grip on Oo tightened slightly, and the small troll girl smiled up at her obliviously.

She missed Rajo terribly despite the years since his death. Elderly Ajalo was dead as well, leaving the world of the living behind with the previous winter's last deep frost. The pain of loss was not as strong since her mother had passed naturally as the cycle of life and death dictated. As both her offspring both understood and accepted it, they had not mourned their grandmother excessively, knowing it was the way of things.

A tugging on the hide cuff around her wrist brought Yah'jinabi out of her thoughts as she and Oo reached the top of the ridge and the troll village appeared before them, sitting contentedly in the snow and rocky slopes. Oo was gaping at something at the end of the path that lead to their home, centered in the middle of a half-circle of open-air huts, the whites showing around her crimson eyes.

"Mother, look at Mang!" She chattered excitedly. "Look what he caught!"

When Yah'j realized the large black boar carcass stretched out near the central bonfire was being stood over by several Frostmane youth and a very proud-looking Mang, her oldest and only son, a flash of maternal gratification tinged with sorrow filled her heart. Clearly, Rajo's same boastful grin was reflected in the features of the young boy, and she was both touched and pained by the resemblance. She was thankful, however, that he had returned home safely. It was incredibly difficult allowing him to venture out into the forest unguarded by herself, as past experiences had caused her to act and feel accordingly, but finally had settled for instructing her lupine companion of two years to keep watch over the boy on his hunt.

Oo slipped her hand out of her mother's and ran towards her yellow-haired half-brother, calling out his name.

"Mang! Mang! You are such a good hunter!" She exclaimed, and the attention of both Mang, the other boys and the white wolf that was sprawled out near the fire was turned towards the small Frostmane girl. The wolf bounded up and very nearly knocked Oo over in his excitement, his bristly tail wagging happily as he licked at her round face.

"You are a good hunter too, Smadda!" She giggled, wiping way the canine slobber from her cheeks and then further smearing it on the little doeskin dress she wore. A moment later her mother was at her side to grip the enthusiastic, friendly beast by his scruff and pull her pet away from Oo.

"Mother," Mang began, turning away from the trio of other troll children whom he was speaking with, and took a step towards her as if seeking an embrace. One of the other three boys snickered, causing Mang to stop short and cast a shamed glance towards Yah'j. The adult hunter gave a subtle understanding nod and smile, and Mang instead remained where he was, squared his narrow shoulders proudly and lifted his chin.

"I-" he gestured at the boar, momentarily unable to conjure up something strong to say in the company of his peers. "I... killed it myself!" He blurted, his short, awkward tusks seeming silly when he smiled around them, still not yet fully grown in his stage of childhood. The curve of his developing tusks were unmistakably growing downwards, which was reminiscent of his father. Both of Yah'jinabi's children seemed to take more features from their sires than from herself, save their poppy-red eyes, but that was a common feature of the Frostmane trolls. In fact, if one was unknowing, it was difficult to distinguish the two as of her own blood.

While Oo, despite still being uncertainly young, did not show any promise for developing any sort of trollish beauty as she aged, Mang was certainly a handsome young boy by comparison. His rough, saffron-hued hair- highly uncommon for a Frostmane- was scruffy and unruly and gathered at the nape of his neck with a strip of boar hide. Already, a necklace of his displayed mementos from past kills was strung over his chest. So far, it consisted of the jawbone of a squirrel and the tip of a deer horn that he had, in truth, found nearly dead from blood loss due to a dwarf's steel trap and dragged home with the help of his mother after dispatching it.

Despite the flush of embarrassment that swept up his cheekbones when she did so, Yah'j gently smoothed a hand over Mang's hair and smiled warmly. "I am very proud of you. Did you bring it home by yourself?"

"Well, no..." he ducked away from her hand, obviously attempting to conceal any sign that he was in fact enjoying his mother's affection and attention as the other children watched on and re-ruffled his yellow mane. "I couldn't pull the arrow out, so I had to come back and get Cousin Abolji to help me."

"Where is Cousin Abolji?" Oo was suddenly clinging to Yah'j's side, idly hanging on to the strap that ran diagonally across her chest that held the wrapped bundle of short throwing spears secure across her mother's back. "I found a feather for him!" She dug one delicate little hand into the pocket of her doeskin dress and her face crumpled almost instantly. "Oh no... I lost it! It... it was so pretty too!" Tears balanced on the edge of her eyes as she mourned the loss of the very feather that was even now stuck into her hair. Yah'j sighed, grinning, and subtly plucked it out and dropped it on the ground behind Oo, where it fluttered to a stop at her bare heels.

"Is that it, Oo?" She pointed out the feather, and the child, overjoyed, scooped it up and clutched it to her chest.

"Good! I can give it to Cousin now!" She trilled, dashing between Mang and his friends as she headed out into the village in search of Abolji.

The Frostmane hunter stood by the fire after Oo left, listening as Mang retold the fabulous story regarding his incredibly successful hunt to his mother, the three other children departing as it began to snow for their own homes. As she heard out her talented son, her loyal wolf Smadda heeled at her side and her admittedly charming daughter safe for one more night, she sighed inaudibly, feeling a solid, comfortable warmth of peace settle over her as the evening approached.

But... what would tomorrow bring?


End file.
